Meandering on the Way — September 13-18, 2023

Wednesday, September 13

E took Asher for a walk again today and this time M went along. E has been subbing for one of Asher’s owners who has been out of commission for dog walking. The good news is that said owner* is on the mend and and will be able to return to duty soon.

*Asher himself does not use the word ‘owner’ and instead refers to L as “one of my two very well-behaved human roommates.”

Friday, September 15

We spent the morning preparing for our camping trip, but then took a break at from 1:00 to 2:00 to see a presentation about the cute little food delivery robots on the OSU campus.

What with one thing and another, it was 3:30 by the time we got ourselves packed into the truck. We travelled east through the towns of Lebanon and Sweet Home and into the mountains. We were headed for an old CCC campground called Yukwah on the banks of the South Santiam River. It was only an hour away, fortunately, so we had enough to time to set up camp, take a little walk along the river, and then have our dinner before it got too dark. You know it’s fall when it starts to get dark at 7:00 instead of 9:00. We were just washing up as the light got dim.

Saturday, September 16

Today was hiking day, so we could justify a big breakfast: eggs and potatoes with cheese along with sweet peppers from the garden. Very nice. But of course we had forgotten to bring bread, so we couldn’t use E’s old stovetop toaster gizmo. Sigh.

After breakfast we cleaned up the camp so that it wouldn’t look too horrible or too tempting while we were gone. Then we got back in the truck and drove the eighteen or so miles to the trailhead. The last 15 miles were gravel, fairly smooth in most places but also quite steep and always dusty. The route took us up out the South Santiam drainage, over the ridge and down into the Middle Santiam, offering a few nice views along the way.

We didn’t plan on a long hike, just a visit to the Middle Santiam Wilderness, one of our favorites places in the Cascades. From the trailhead the first 300 yards of the trail takes you through an area that was logged long ago but is now thickly forested with mature cedar, hemlock and fir. Only the presence of a few giant stumps reveals that it was once a clearcut.

After 300 yards, the trail comes to the line where the early 20th Century cutting stopped. From there you walk through living old growth forest with trees so big you can’t tilt your head back far enough to see their tops. At roughly the one mile mark, the trail reaches the river and that’s where the obstacle course part of our day began. First came a steep scramble to get down to the level of the river. Along the way, some satirist had placed a number of giant fallen trees, some demanding to be crawled under and others wanting to be climbed over. Okay, fine. Be that way. Then we got to the river, which is low at this time of year, shallow and only ten or twelve feet across. So you know the drill…change into your stream crossing shoes, tie your boots to your backpack and get ready to cross. We don’t hike with trekking poles, so our preparations also had to include searching around for some sturdy sticks to help us keep our balance in the water. Luckily, other people had already done the same and had kindly left their sticks to be found. Once across, it was time to rest a while till our feet dried. That at least was no hardship.

Then we walked another three quarters of mile along the trail, just to see the many three and four hundred year old trees growing on the steep slopes above the river. Of course one or two old trees had fallen across the trail, causing their own kind of fun. At a Y junction, we took neither road, just turned around, went back down the trail, and recrossed the river. Then we made our way back up one obstacle course and down another till we reached our true destination–the swimming hole.

We’d eaten some lunch up in the wilderness, but by the time we got back to camp we were starting to think about dinner. We weren’t too excited about it though because by then we had realized that some key parts of our delicious dinner had been left behind and were still sitting in our freezer back in Corvallis. Oops. Still, we managed to make a meal out of burgerless buns with all the trimmings. Luckily we had not forgotten to pack dessert.

After dinner we walked again along the river, this time leaving the path for a while and walking just beside the water on a very rocky beach. We heard some birds chattering and fired up the Merlin app, which informed us that we were listening to an American Dipper. We then caught a glimpse of it on the other side of the river: a small, dark colored bird that was hard to make out in the early evening light. We’d never heard this bird’s call before, except that E realized that the American Dipper had been featured on the Bird Note podcast just a few days ago, an odd coincidence. Then, five minutes later, when we came up out of the river bottom and approached the fishing platform, what did we see on the railing?

Sunday, September 17

The previous evening E said she wanted to get up in the night and go out and see the stars and that M should wake her. You bet, said M. Along about 3:00 AM, he gave it a try. “Time to get out and look at the stars,” said he. After a short pause, E answered, saying “Uh-uh. I just finished telling John to stop painting the floor green.” M could not argue with that and so did not persist. It was maybe just as well, since it was getting a little cold out at that point, low forties or worse. And there were too many tall trees blocking out the stars anyway.

In the morning we had a non-hiking day breakfast of E’s secret granola blend topped with yogurt and a homemade concoction of partially cooked fresh strawberries. Pretty good. Then it was time to pack up and head back home. Today was the final day of the season for Yukwah campground, so we were the last campers of the year at site #8.

Monday, September 18

Did we sleep better last night than we had the two previous nights? Uh…yeah.

Once we got out of bed, we decided to go over to Albany and buy some vintage coffee cups that E has had her eye on. And while we were in town, we went over to WalMart where there is an Electrify America charging station. This would be the first time for us to charge the car anywhere except at home. We found an open 350v charger and after some stumbling about, we figured out how to make it work. We charged the Ioniq’s battery from 24% to 87% of its capacity in just 17 minutes, which is about a minute faster than Hyundai promises. Conditions, of course, were near ideal, with an ambient temperature of around 76 degrees.